


Beautiful

by ThatPilotGirl



Category: the Queen's Gambit
Genre: BAMF Jolene, Bisexual Benny Watts, Bisexual Beth Harmon, Bisexuality, Canon Bisexual Character, Canon Gay Character, Everything i write is bisexual polyamory, Gay Townes, Genderfluid Benny Watts, If no one else is gonna write fic for this, Multi, Or Anything Else, Polyamory, and tell me he is cishet, because wow, but we knew that already, or hair, then i will, this show was incredible, you cannot look at that man's wardrobe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:48:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27313603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatPilotGirl/pseuds/ThatPilotGirl
Summary: "Chess can be beautiful" Beth once told a reporter who wanted her to say something different. It still is. But there are other beautiful things too.
Comments: 86
Kudos: 367
Collections: bookmarks





	Beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing. Don't ask me when his takes place, I have no idea. Sometime in the future.

**Townes**

"I understand you know." She tells him one hot night in Miami.

She's in town for an exhibition, he's rented a car to drive down and be on the first direct flight from Miami to Kentucky. They're by the pool. He's taken a few shots of her for old times sake, and there's a board set up. Checkers though, not chess. Mostly they're talking and talking and talking.

"Understand what?"

"There's a girl. In France."

Townes nods contemplatively, takes her hand in his.

"Daniel. Daniel Louis Townes."

She hums thoughtfully, bringing the knowledge tight to her like the gift that it is.

"It suits."

"It is my name, after all."

They sit for a while longer, leaning against each other. Their feet dangle in the water.

(It was never unrequited love, she knows that now. She knows now that love isn't always what you expect.)

**Jolene**

"It's too much," Jolene says, when Beth hands her a check for $5,010.

She's not looking at the five, she's looking at the last two digits, tracing them with one perfectly manicured nail.

"He would have wanted you to have it." Beth replies, shrugging and refusing to meet the other girl's eyes.

"Oh honey."

Jolene pulls her into one of those big Jolene hugs, the kind that make Beth feel more at home than anywhere else in the world.

"You can have the black dress too. And the purple one," Beth mumbles into Jolene's shoulder.

Jolene snorts.

"You think my ass is gonna fit into your little saltine-cracker-sized dresses? Nu-uh. You can take me shopping though. I'm gonna need some real sophisticated shit to wear to law school."

"Whatever you want. I'm never gonna make you have to look for me in the newspapers again." Beth vows.

"Well. When I become a radical, I'm gonna be right there on the front covers too."

Beth believes it.

She's right to.

**Harry**

She gives Harry the house. Well, not gives. Loans. He takes her old bedroom, and the master sits empty except when she's in town. When she's in town they share it. When she's in town they curl up together in the big bed and she teaches him how she likes to be touched. Afterwards they kiss and she reads chess magazine while he reads the electrician's trades and they fall asleep with the lamp still on.

They cook a lot. They dance around the kitchen and every time Harry finds a bottle from her old stash he pours it down the drain. She lets him. He puts his own art up on the walls to accompany hers, and makes sure to pay the boy across the street a nickle to mow the lawn every so often.

Eventually he stops kissing her like he's not sure she wants it, and starts kissing her like he knows she does. She does.

Eventually, there are no bottles left to pour down the drain.

Eventually, Harry sleeps in the master bedroom even when she's out of town. When she gets back late, his body curls around her without him even waking up.

Sometimes she sleeps in her old room. In the morning, they still make breakfast together.

**Cleo**

Maybe, Beth still thinks sometimes, she could have beaten Borgov in Paris if she hadn't been so goddamn hungover. As her lowest moment, she hates Cleo for it. Hates the girl for dragging her out of her study, for ordering the second round, for leading them over to those boys.

But then she remembers Cleo sliding into a seat the next morning, still obviously hungover herself but bright and encouraging, and Beth knows she has no one but herself to blame. But who could blame her for Cleo? Beautiful Cleo. Brilliant Cleo. Captivating Cleo.

The next time she's in Paris, she looks Cleo up.

"I will be there in the morning ma cherie" promises the voice at the other end of the phone.

"Ma cherie?"

"Ah. We will have to teach you French."

Sometimes they're in Barcelona at the same time. Sometimes it's London. Sometimes it's Rio. Once, in New York, they kick Benny out of his own bedroom and he whines horribly until Cleo tells him where her model friends are partying.

The next night, Benny keeps his room while Cleo and Beth go where the models are. Beth dances on tables, smokes a few cigarettes, and sips whiskey from Cleo's lips.

When Cleo runs to the restroom and returns to find Beth entangled with another woman, she smiles.

"Better in Paris. We'll go next time you're in town.

"Townes took me in Miami."

"Hmm. There too."

**Benny**

"That's what it's supposed to be like," Beth remembers thinking, the first time she was with Benny.

After her fumbling with the boy from Russian class, her awkward early attempts with Harry, Benny had been the first to make her body give her something as beautiful as her mind did. That little basement apartment-

And after when he had started talking about chess and she understood suddenly how Harry must have felt.

If she'd gone back after Paris, after Cleo, Jolene never would have found her. She can't regret the downward spiral, because New York City and Benny would not have been able to help her. Only Jolene could have done that. Only the first person she can ever remember loving could have made her love herself.

Now though, she has a key and a place in his bed same as her own. So many of the late night shows are in New York, it makes more sense to stay with him than keep spending money on hotels. He does complain a bit, about how much space her things take up in his closet, so one day she ties a belt around one of his kimonos and does an interview in it.

He fucks her hard and messy and perfect against the door the moment she returns.

The next morning she wears another while she dresses him. She selects one of her high-collared blouses, ties a scarf around his lovely hair, and makes him hold still while she draws on eyeliner and lipstick and picks her favorite pieces of his jewelry to distribute between the two of them. Beth steals his trench coat. The look her gives her when she straps on his spare knife means they almost don't go to breakfast, and they definitely never have separate sides of the closet again.

Townes laughs on the phone, and says that Cleo must just not know about the best places in New York.

She supposes it's only fair play when they kick her out of the bedroom for a night.

**Bonus: Borgov**

The black king sits on the center of the mantle in the house in Lexington.

She writes Borgov letters sometimes, in a strange mix of Russian and English. Thoughts, observations, questions. She sketches out diagrams of boards, scribbles lists of titles to see which are worth reading. She knows he is helping Georgi Gerov, and she encloses a special message for him about her first drive-in movie, along with strategies to look at. Borgov's son doesn't play chess, so she send him (and Georgi) her favorite sweets. With his wife, she writes in Russian and French as the woman is fluent in both.

When his letters come back she reads the chess bits with Townes, with Harry and Benny and the rest of the boys. She tells Jolene that Russia might need some radicals too. Cleo smiles at her improved French.

**Author's Note:**

> Yell with me in the comments please

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [acute gifts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27491797) by [sybilius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybilius/pseuds/sybilius)




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